The farming system at Boycefield didn’t just tick all the judges’ boxes when searching for the Soil Farmer of the Year.
It is ticking all the boxes when it comes to reducing inputs and costs across the arable and livestock enterprises.
The focus on healthier soil at the Herefordshire farm has resulted in healthier animals, with reduced intervention and concentrates fed, no fertiliser applied to any grazing ground and an extended grazing season.
See also: How a winning mixed soil farmer cut arable crop inputs
Central to the regenerative system that Billy Lewis runs is the integration of livestock and arable production.
This has seen cereal yields improved, with fertiliser applied on arable land slashed in half.
“You’ll grow more grass with an electric fence than a bag of fertiliser,” says Mr Lewis, who farms in partnership with his parents, James and Cin.
The first change 25-year-old Mr Lewis introduced on his return to the family farm from Harper Adams University was a paddock-grazing system.
Cattle and sheep are mob-grazed in line with the principle of grazing one-third, trampling one-third and leaving one-third.
“That works to keep the soil happy, the plant happy and the animal happy,” he explains.
Herbal leys in the arable rotation
The arable ground is in a six-year rotation – three years of cereal production followed by three years of clover and herbal leys.
As well as building fertility in the soil, these diverse leys provide good grazing for the farm’s 300 breeding ewes and have enabled Mr Lewis to drastically reduce the use of protein supplements and wormers.
Farm facts
- 142ha (350-acre) mixed farm with beef, sheep and arable
- 300-head flock – Cheviot Mules crossed with Charollais, and pure Cheviots crossed with Border Leicester to produce Half Breds, or with Bluefaced Leicester to produce a Cheviot Mule
- Lambs sold finished or as stores at market
- 40-cow pedigree horned Hereford herd, selling privately or at pedigree shows/sales for breeding or finished for sale at market, typically killing out at grade R3 or R4
Grass paddocks are stocked at a density of 300 heads per 0.4ha. This equates to 100 ewes and 200 lambs.
Pastures are free from worm issues in their first year, and by the time the worm burden develops, they are put back to arable crops.
“I think the longer sward they are grazing also helps because they are not grazing in the parasite zone,” says Mr Lewis.
Some of these leys are the GS4 option under Mid Tier Countryside Stewardship, which include white and red clover, chicory, plantain, sainfoin, bird’s-foot trefoil and a mix of grasses.
Others are a simpler mix of ryegrass, white clover, vetch and plantain, which are siled as winter fodder for the cattle.
Sheep enter covers at about 3,500kg dry matter (DM)/ha and the aim is to take them out at 2,000kg DM/ha.
This sees them moved every 48 hours with a 25-day rest period for each paddock.
Despite this year’s drought, single lambs have gained an average of 350g/day from birth to slaughter and doubles have averaged 310g/day.
© Billy Lewis
Previous years would have seen those same lambs creep-fed, but only the last 25% of lambs still on farm have been offered creep this year.
Meanwhile, replacement ewe lambs are overwintered on cover crops.
“The cover crops must be a balance – they need to provide decent forage, which is why we include forage rape, kale and mustard – but they [also] have to work for soil health [with] vetch and clover [used to] fix nitrogen,” explains Mr Lewis.
Lambing dates have been pushed back to late March to coincide with turning out onto lush spring grass to help reduce the need for ewe supplementation.
Cattle grazing
The permanent pasture is predominantly graced by the 40-cow pedigree Hereford herd.
Mr Lewis has tried a leader-follower system before with cattle following ewes, but now tends to keep ewes and lambs on the temporary leys and cattle and dry ewes on the permanent pasture.
Cattle enter paddocks at 4,000kg DM/ha and grace down to 2,500kg DM/ha, at a stocking density of 40 head per 0.4ha.
On a longer rotation, paddocks are rested for 50 days.
This rest period has encouraged new species to emerge from the natural seedbank, such as native clovers, plantain, sorrel and bird’s-foot trefoil.
“That’s in three years, so who knows what we will see in another three.
“With the high-intensity mob-grazing, there is competition to grab what they can get, so there is no selective grazing, which is how those plants would have ended up dying out from the sward in the past,” Mr Lewis believes.
Heifers are finished on forage alone and killed at 22 months, while bulls are taken to 15.5 months and finished on a ration of herbal ley silage, home-grown oats and protein supplement.
This year, grass was shut up in late spring for deferred grazing for cattle. The aim was to extend grazing into December and reduce housing to 90 days.
However, lack of rainfall meant paddocks were brought back into the rotation in August. But baled silage was not fed until October.
Wormer use has been reduced in the stove, too, with youngstock only wormed at housing and over winter, if necessary.
Dropping wormers at grass has made dung beetles a more common sight across the farm.
To simplify beef management, Mr Lewis wants to shift from split-block calving to spring calving. He hopes this will make better use of the grass.
Soil health measurements
Mr Lewis uses the Soilmentor app and the what3words app to ensure he samples the same spots. The four tests he looks at are:
- An earthworm count, indicating biological health of the soil
- The slake (wet aggregate stability) test, which looks at how well the soil holds together in water. This indicates organic matter and micro-organism content
- Rooting depth reached by 80% of roots. Factors limiting this include compaction and nutrient deficiency
- Rhizosheaths (soil particles coating roots). This indicates biological/microbial activity in the root zone (rhizosphere).
“Rhizosheaths are important in my opinion. It shows how the plants are interacting with the soil. If there is plenty of soil stuck to the roots, then that is a good sign,” says Mr Lewis.
However, he says that numbers aren’t the be-all and end-all.
“You can measure all you want, but the more you dig about in the soil, the more you get a feel for it.”